I've begun scanning Horace and we don't get any references in class for scansion; our professor does it on the board and sometimes makes errors so it's hard for me to practice scansion when I do it and have no way to check it because sometimes, even when the meter fits according to quantity, something could be incorrect.

So my question has 2 faucets

1) Is there any book and/or online reference for the Scansion of common Horace poems?

2) In line 3 of Horace 1.5 (Ode to Pyrrha) do I scan something in Pyrrha as long? I'm struggling to find the third long syllable between grato and sub... Is the y in Pyrrha a vowel?

The line goes grato, Pyrrha, sub antro?

Thanks,V

EDIT: This is completely in the wrong section I apologize, I didn't realize the forum had Greek and Latin: I clicked the "Learning X" forum I had been at before I registered my username. Could a moderator recity my mistake and move this to the Latin page?

I don't have much experience with Horace but there's this site about the metres he uses which seems decent enough. I'm sure there's a lot more out there.

About your second question, y is always a vowel and always represents a separate syllable. And just to add, here Pyrrha gets divided as pyr.rha and since pyr ends in a consonant, that syllable scans as long, or if you've learned it differently, y is followed by a double consonant and therefore scans as long. (I don't know if this y is inherently long or short but for purposes of the metre it doesn't matter because it's followed by a double consonant.)

If you can get a hold of Daniel Garrison's text and commentary (Horace : Epodes and Odes), that's what I learned Horace from, and it's extremely helpful. There's a section that shows the scansion for every poem. But pretty soon, after you read enough of them, you'll probably get the hang of it and be able to figure them out on your own.

The line you're asking about goes like this (- = long, u = short):

- - - u u - -

And it's the same in the other three stanzas: nigris aequora uentis (7) (although the first syllable of nigris could be either long or short), sperat nescius aurae (11), and suspendisse potenti (14).

If you can't find the Garrison book or something comparable, or if you still have questions, by all means keep writing in and asking! It's VERY good that you're making the effort to read Horace metrically -- without that, you miss half the aesthetic effect of the poems